A fax over packet application enables the interworking of standard fax machines with packet networks. The traditional method extracts the fax image from a fax machine's analog signal and carries it as digital data over the packet network. Packet networks used to transport the fax include Internet (IP), Frame Relay, and ATM. Fax data in its original form is digital, however it is modulated and converted to analog for transmission over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The fax over packet interworking functions reverses the analog conversion, instead transmitting digital data over the packet network, and then reconverting the digital data to analog for the receiving fax machine. This conversion process reduces the overall bandwidth required to send the fax because the digital form is much more efficient and the fax transmission is half duplex.
Various protocols exist for transmission and receipt of facsimiles over low-delay analog voice-grade telephone lines. Once such protocol is Group 3 (G3), defined in Recommendation T.30, “Procedures for document facsimile transmission in the general switched telephone network”, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. T.30 is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recommendation for facsimile transmissions over a telephone network. The T.30 protocol describes the formatting of non-page data, such as messages that are used for capabilities negotiation. The recommendation defines three different protocols for facsimile transfer, Group 1, 2 and 3, Only Group 3 (G3) is in common use today. While the G3 protocol is defined for analog transmission, the backbone network for modern telephone systems is generally digital. In addition, the ITU Recommendation T.38 “Procedures for real-time Group 3 facsimile communication over IP networks” defines realtime protocols for transmission of realtime fax over an IP network. When facsimile devices are connected through a digital network, such as packet, ATM, or Frame Relay, the sending and receiving devices are not directly connected. In a packet network, the facsimile information is packetized at a sending end, sent over the packet network, and reassembled into a facsimile format at the receiving end before presentation to the receiving facsimile device. The connection over a packet network is not a constant connection and often experiences line delays, errors, and/or packet loss which must be hidden from the facsimile device by a gateway in order to avoid error detection by the receive fax device.
Broadband access devices, such as cable modems or digital subscriber line (DSL) modems, are increasingly expected to provide IP telephony services in addition to high-speed data. They are typically expected to have two or more RJ11 ports for telephony services that would accommodate either two telephone extensions or a telephone and fax machine. For the end user, the telephony/data ports are expected to look and act similar to a standard analog telephone line for use in making local and long-distance telephone calls as well as for sending fax transmissions (and potentially even dial-up modems under rare circumstances). However, for the service provider, each telephony port adds significantly to the device costs and computational requirements, including the type and number of digital signal processors (DSP) in an access device and the processing resources, such as MIPS (Millions of Instructions Cycles Per Second) dedicated to each port. What is needed is the capability of a low-cost broadband access gateway to support fax transmission and reception without having to allocate a telephony port and DSP resource to a fax modem on a computer or an analog fax machine.